Your Job Search Toolkit (part 6)

Although we have talked about several pieces for your Job Search Toolkit, your plans for a job search are not yet complete. Additionally, I encourage you to prepare a professional bio, identify your target companies/organizations, select professional references, develop a networking script and list of contacts, and create/purchase a record keeping system.


The professional bio should be prepared to highlight achievements related to your current career direction. It should be brief, typically no more than one page, and should be written in third person. This document could be used in some networking meetings and possibly in contacting potential employers. Instead of peddling your resume everywhere, a professional bio can be used when you talk with people about what you are looking for, as it will give them concrete examples of your experiences. If you are approaching a potential employer about how your background may be beneficial to them, a professional bio can be a good representation of you. You may also wish to share a copy with people who will be serving as professional references for you and others who may be able to put in a good word for you with people they know.


A professional biography (bio) is a brief (one typed page) description of your work history. Obviously, you would not necessarily include every job you have held, only those that are most relevant to the kind of work you are currently seeking. The points on your bio should be linked to your accomplishment stories. You should also include some tangible results from the accomplishments you include. It is good to include any quantifiable data that relates to your accomplishments, as well. Find appropriate action words to use in describing what you have done.


Once you have clarified the kind of work you are looking for, you should put together a list of preferred potential employers who could benefit from your skills and talents. Those would be the organizations that you should research fairly well to learn about them as you try to find a niche you could fill for them. You will want to find out not only their location and primary contact information, but also names of key people related to your desired position. You would also want to research potential needs they may have or problems you could help them address. We will address the remaining pieces for the toolkit in the last blog post for this series.




Mary Ann Davis, M.A., is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a job or career change, coping with an empty nest, planning to return to work or school, non-retirement planning, coping with loss of job, and other life planning issues. She meets with individuals in-person and on-line to assist them to find solutions to their life transition issues. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). Please visit her web site at http://www.yourcareerplan.com/ for more information on her services.


To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.

Your Job Search Toolkit (part 5)

In preparation for job interviews, you should also prepare, or at least think about, experiences and activities from your past that would demonstrate your skills and strengths to share with an employer. It is a good idea to write out some stories of your accomplishments. You should be able to come with at least 5 or 6 stories from your background that would be appropriate to share. These accomplishments can be from previous work experiences, volunteer or community activities, but should be relevant to the kinds of work you are currently pursuing. Obviously, if you are considering different types of work for your next move, you may need some different stories to suit the different industries or work environments you are seeking.


In addition to preparing your accomplishment stories, in this job market, it is to your advantage to have an online presence. You should have an email address (not through your employer) through which you could be contacted. The email address should be a decent name, not some "cute" nickname, etc. These days it is also a good idea to have a Professional Profile on LinkedIn. You should use it only for professional information and networking. If you have a profile on Facebook or other network, I encourage you to check to see what information is there and remove anything you would not want a potential employer to see. Employers are actually checking the online presence of candidates - sometimes even before they invite them in for an interview. As far as that goes, it is a good idea to Google yourself so you can see what else is out there about you.


LinkedIn can be very beneficial in your networking activities but you should be willing to share information, as well. Find some groups you would like to belong to and follow their posts, offering a reply or comment, as appropriate. Maintaining your contacts through LinkedIn can also be advantageous even after you start a new job.

Although I encourage you to find job posting sites that are appropriate for you to follow in your search, I also encourage you to monitor the amount of time you spend on line. It is very easy to get involved in browsing and reading, but it is not necessarily a productive use of your time.




Mary Ann Davis, M.A., is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a career or job change, planning for non-retirement, coping with a job loss, preparing to return to school or to work, and other life planning issues. She meets with individuals in person and on-line to assist them to find solutions to life transition issues. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). Please visit her web site at http://www.yourcareerplan.com/ for more information on her services.

To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.

Your Job Search Toolkit (part 4)

These days a job search requires the individual to be prepared for a variety of interview situations. Employers or their representatives are probably conducting more phone screening interviews than they used to do. Those are often designed to "weed out" candidates who are not the type of employee the employer is seeking. It may involve clarifying parts of your background or more of a personality screening. At any rate, no matter what the format, an interview should be prepared for in advance. You may be invited to meet with a search committee and/or someone from Human Resources and that will likely happen before you actually get to meet with someone from the actual hiring department and before you meet your potential boss.

It is OK to ask what type of interview or format you will be involved in. This allows you to get your mind ready for what you may face. It is always a good idea to think about what kinds of questions you may get. There are a variety of sources online that offer typical interview questions, if you'd like to review those. In addition to the typical questions, you should think about what you would want to know, if you were in the position of employer, and how you would answer those questions. You should also prepare some questions you can ask. They should be designed to demonstrate that you know something about the organization and its products/services.


As part of your preparation, you should think about what you consider to be your individual attractive factors - those things about you that make you a strong candidate and hopefully make you more qualified than others who apply. What skills/experiences do you possess that other applicants may not? Are there particular traits you possess that may make you more attractive to a potential employer? Why would they want to hire you, instead of one of the other hundreds of candidates who likely applied for the job? Those are questions you will want to answer in preparing for your interviews. Hopefully in your research on the organization, you were able to identify a need they have that you could help them address. All of these pieces could be part of your individual attractive factors.




Mary Ann Davis, M.A., is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including career or job change, coping with a job loss, preparing to return to school or to work, planning for retirement, and other life planning concerns. She works with individuals in persona and via telephone to assist them in finding solutions to their life transition issues. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). Please visit her web site at http://www.yourcareerplan.com/ for more information on her services.


To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.

Your Job Search Toolkit (part 3)

We have reviewed the three main formats for resumes for your job search toolkit. Today, we will talk about your Position and Departure Statements. Although I suggest you prepare these statements in advance, ideally they will be something you can repeat without having it sound like a memorized speech. So I do encourage you to practice your statements, once you have written them.

When I talk about a Departure Statement, I'm referring to a brief statement that explains why you left/or are planning to leave your previous position - your departure. This could be particularly beneficial when your reason(s) are not within your control, but when well written, could also help explain situations where you were "at fault".

Your Departure Statement should be brief - about 30 to 40 seconds - and should be positive in tone. It should include why and how you left your previous employer or why you are seeking a new position. It should reflect that you have a clear idea of where you are headed professionally, and that you are prepared to do what you need to do to get there. It could be used when you are networking or looking for leads to potential employment opportunities and may be appropriate to share in an interview when asked why you are looking or why you are available.

A Position Statement is also known by other names, including an Introductory Statement or an elevator speech. This statement should also be brief - about 30 seconds - and be positive in nature. It should address your individual attractive factors (to be covered in a later post on toolkits), your professional reputation, and the kind of industry and position you are looking for.

The Position Statement is also very valuable when networking and can be crafted as a response to the frequently asked interview question, "Tell me about yourself." It could also be used when you unexpectedly meet someone in a professional situation you would like to introduce yourself to. This statement should also reflect your knowledge of who you are, professionally, and what you are looking for, which should be a reasonable goal, based on your background.

Obviously, if you are currently looking for more than one type of job, you would need to adjust your statements accordingly, so they are appropriate for what you will share otherwise about your background.


Mary Ann Davis, M.A., is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a career or job change, planning for retirement, coping with a job loss, preparing to return to work or school, coping with an empty nest, and other life planning concerns. She meets with individuals in person and via telephone to assist them with finding solutions to their life planning issues. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). For more information on her services, please visit her web site at www.YourCareerPlan.com.
To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.

Create Your Job Search Toolkit (part 2)

In the last post we talked about a basic chronological resume for your job search toolkit. Today, we'll talk about the other resume formats - functional and combination (sometimes referred to as chrono-functional). If you choose to design a functional or combination resume, their formats are fairly similar. Instead of listing your work experiences in reverse chronological order, like you would for a chronological resume, you identify 3 to 5 broad skill areas which you have used and would like to focus on in your next position.

Of course, you would still begin with appropriate contact information about you, no matter which format you choose. Your resume could still have a Summary or Professional Profile section that could be written as a sort of paragraph or just a bulleted list. The idea for the summary is to give the reader a few highlights from your background that will entice her/him to read further. This should also include action words that are directly related to the kind of work you hope to do next.

For your work experience, you would create 3 to 5 headings that represent your experiences (your functional skills), whether paid or volunteer. So a person in business might use headings of Marketing and Communications, Inventory Control, and Management and Supervision, for example. Then under each of those headings you would have brief statements that represent experiences you have using that skill. The statements could be work from a combination of job titles and/or companies or from volunteer or other professional activities. So the skills and experiences that you want to showcase that are related to marketing and communications, for example, would be listed under that category.

The primary difference between a functional and a combination resume is the amount of information provided for each of your employers. In a truly functional resume, you would simply list the name of each employer, dates of employment, location of the job, and your job title. In a combination resume, in addition to that information, you would also provide a brief statement (or statements about your responsibilities in each job. In either format, if the name of the employer may not easily be recognized, it is a good idea to include a brief statement regarding the nature of the company - it's primary focus.

You will need an education section no matter which format you choose. If you have volunteer experiences, you may wish to include a section to list those organizations or companies, as well. Additionally, you may wish to include a section on professional activities or organizations in which you are actively involved.

It is generally believed that a combination or functional resume provides more flexibility, and perhaps visibility, particularly for individuals who are making a career change and not staying in the same field in which they are currently or were most recently working. These formats are also preferred by many individuals who have a gap in their work history. On the whole, I believe most employers still prefer the chronological resume format, but if your background would be represented by one of the other formats, you may wish to try that and see what responses you get. Because, no matter which resume format you choose, if it does not result in positive responses, you want to make some adjustments to it and try again. In the next post we will discuss other items for your job search toolkit.

Mary Ann Davis, M.A., is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice, providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a career change or job search, preparing for retirement, returning to work or to school, coping with a loss of job. She meets with individuals in person and via telephone assisting them to find solutions to their life transition issues. She is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National Career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). Please visit her web site at www.YourCareerPlan.com for more information on her services.
To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential voice message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.